A contemporary learning environment vs. a more agile workplace environment

As I toggle back and forth between Corporate Workplace projects and Higher Education projects, I’m struck by the dramatically different pace of evolution in those environments.

Workplaces are evolving to enable new ways of working and collaborating, physically and digitally. Work settings are being customized in real time to adapt to an increasingly social and mobile working environment. Meanwhile, with a few exceptions, higher education classroom buildings remain inflexible and unable to accept change, despite the clear need for varied, scalable learning settings that can change on a semester-to-semester (or even a day-to-day) basis. READ MORE

July 9th, 2012|Comments Off on Higher Education Could Take a Lesson from Corporate Workplace|Live & Learn

No guys, seriously. This is what every architect I know looks like. All of us. Especially the ones who’ve just pulled all-nighters before a deadline. Photo from Banana Republic catalogue.

I stumbled into architecture from a checkered (and stupendously nerdy) past in anthropology, art and marketing, and as a total glutton for punishment, I’ve been working on gaining an architecture degree for the last few years as well as marketing-monkeying. It’s been a little strange, largely because as every intern probably figures out during their first summer job, Architecture as discussed in the context of studio and school is wildly different from architecture in practice.

As a result, it’s hard not to feel as though my architectural education has a split personality, or a disconnect between brain and hands. Design and methodology happen on both sides, but if you were only doing one at a time, as most do, I don’t doubt that it would be difficult to not come out a little skewed. After all, in studio, we’re predominantly arguing about concepts: entry sequence and the intrinsic properties associated with space types, and how space makes you feeeeeeeeeeel. No budgets, few parameters, no clients waiting for meetings…design in a vacuum is awesome, but only works in real life if you’re an architect and also a billionaire playboy. READ MORE

July 2nd, 2012|Comments Off on On the perils of Architecture vs. architecture|Live & Learn

The ideas and insights shared on SpeakEasy are intended to stimulate thought, inspire innovation and fuel breakthrough ideas that create a better future for people. SpeakEasy is authored by the restless minds at Little, a national, multi-disciplinary design firm.